


A disturbance in the Force

by Gweiddi_at_Ecate



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Good King Wenceslas makes an out of season appearance, I hope you’ve watched the new episodes, Swan-Jones family drama, else: spoilers, is there a thing as too many Star Wars references, parenting, probably done right, sure there is, this ficlet is a clear example
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 05:44:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16130870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gweiddi_at_Ecate/pseuds/Gweiddi_at_Ecate
Summary: In which Emma Swan-Jones freaks out about a music box and other stuff.





	A disturbance in the Force

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Matthew Stover’s _Revenge of the Sith_ novelization, when Vader says “I _am_ a disturbance in the Force”.  
>  I swear there's a reason for this title. Just read.
> 
> I own absolutely nothing, not even the English language, because I'm not a native speaker. Ugh.  
> I own a cat, though. Or he owns me. I dunno. His name is Merlin. Say hi, Merlin!

There’s a swirl of movement. Something that Zelena called ‘a touch of magic’.

_“Robin never did that when she was a babe. Maybe your child will have Mommy’s magic? She’s second generation of True Love, after all. It’d make a nice Savior 2.0.”_

Killian doesn’t particularly care if Hope has magic or not. He’s kinda used to it, what with coming from a land filled with magic, living in Neverland for a couple of centuries and babysitting Neal, who’s been levitating his toys around the room since he was four.

Emma, though? Emma is freaking out.

Okay, first of all, she should not have been pregnant. She had mistaken Hope for an early menopause, so that was already unexpected enough. She should have known better. A broken condom had fucked her before, so it was ironically fitting that a broken condom would fuck her again.

Then she had thought, ‘okay, I’ve already done this while alone and in jail. The situation has highly improved. How hard can it be?’

Very fucking much, thank you. Being pregnant in your forties is the worst. It just is.

By her second trimester she was living with packets of saltines in her pockets and ranting about how they shouldn’t call it ‘morning sickness’: it’s just ‘sickness’. Or ‘all day round sickness’.

Her mother had tried to correct her during one of her tirades.

_“It’s ‘all day long’, Emma. ‘All year round’ and ‘all day long’.”_

_“That makes no sense. Why can’t I say ‘all day round’?”_

_“It’s a fixed expression.”_

_“So what?  I unfixed it!”_

She had then swiftly run to the toilet to meet her lunch again because of _All. Day. Round. Sickness_.

But she was ready. Emma was positively ready to have a kid, a kid she was having with her True Love, and do right by him. Her. Whatever.

_“Do you want to know if it’s a boy or a girl?”_

_“Do you have some magic tool that can tell us?”_

_“Well, I don’t: the hospital does. It’s called ‘science’, Killian. The baby was turned last time, so the doctor couldn’t tell, but with the new ultrasound maybe we can find out.”_

_“I bet it’s a girl. And she’ll have her mother’s eyes.”_

_“I say it’s a boy.”_

Killian won the bet fair and square.

Actually, there is still a little blue in Hope’s green eyes. Killian says they’re the color of the ocean waves, but Killian turns into a lovesick poet in front of their daughter so his opinion is not what you would define reliable.

Although they are a little bit like the ocean.

Maybe Emma’s irreversibly lovesick about their daughter too. While thanks to Regina she remembers – knows? Has seen? – how Henry was as a baby, how it felt the first time your child comes home crying because he scraped his knees, this is different. This is not a memory someone kindly bestowed upon her, this is Emma feeling it herself, and her hands itch with the urge to weave her fingers in her daughter’s hair and say that it’s alright and that Mommy’s gonna magic that evil booboo away.

She doesn’t, though, because magic isn’t the answer to everything, and if Hope learns that running around the garden like a little savage gets her scraped knees, then next time she’ll mind where she puts her feet.

Hope smells like freshly baked cookies, milk and shampoo and she’s perfect and Emma is pretty sure she didn’t start her daughter’s music box so _why the hell is Good King Wenceslas playing?_

She goes into the living room and yep, there she is. Hope. Playing with the music box Emma knows Killian hid on one of the top shelves after an hour-long session of their daughter playing the Christmas carol nonstop. Killian made them all swear never to dig it up again, not until he’s alive.

So how does Hope have it?

There’s a tingling crispiness in the air. Hope laughs and waves her hand and the doll that was laying on the carpet flies in the air, dancing in tune with the carol.

Emma guesses that answers it.

She was ready to have a kid. So ready. She was not ready to have a kid with magic.

_“Mom!”_

_“Hi, Emma! What’s up?”_

_“Hope has magic. Like, like real magic, like Neal and me magic.”_

_“That’s wonderful.”_

_“How is it wonderful?”_

_“How is it not?”_

Someone should throw Emma a bone before she loses it.

Having magic is not an easy job. Yes, her baby brother is doing fine with it; Emma has seen Neal using his magic to rescue Grace and Violet’s cat from the top of a tree, but he is Snow White and Prince Charming’s kid. He is being raised by the two most renown epitomes of goodness, _of course_ he’s turning out just fine. It’s thanks to their belated arrival and Henry’s help that Emma turned out decently, and that says something about their astounding levels of good parenting. She used to be a street rat, for crying out loud.

Emma is not so sure she’s good enough for Hope. She might have been the Savior in the past – yes, that’s one title she hung up on her racket, and the fact that she basically retired from saving people already speaks volumes about her selflessness – but it doesn’t mean she is fit to raise a child with magic.

The second-generation-of-True-Love matter is scaring her shitless. Regina and Zelena both say that it’s unprecedented, but they are quite sure it means Hope is destined for something huge.

Emma knows what this entails: with the potential for a great good comes the potential for a great evil.

That’s how all her history with Lily went down. And yet, Lily isn’t doing so bad: she’s not burning kingdoms down to cinders or eating the marrow of her enemies. Yes, she’s prickly and definitely has a vindictive streak about her, but it leans more on petty revenge than promises of blood and gore, so she is not generally evil. Apparently, she even gets along just fine with her dragon mommy and daddy.

That’s when it strikes Emma: what if her own potential for evil was not being evil herself but giving birth to an even greater evil?

What if her baby girl, with her soft curls and shrill, adorable laughter grows up into some Darth Hope and destroys everything and everyone they have ever loved and Emma won’t be able to stop her, because she can’t stand the thought of anything hurting her daughter?

She suddenly understands how her parents came to curse Lilith with Emma’s darkness.

So yeah, Emma Swan-Jones is freaking out. Wish-Henry has just left to go searching for adult-Henry because he isn’t used to Emma being scared and doesn’t know what to do with her, while adult-Henry is pretty well-versed with her hysterics.

Speaking of which, Emma still hasn’t figured out how exactly _that_ had worked. One day she had a son, and then she had two, and a daughter-in-law _and_ a granddaughter.

She had still been pregnant with Hope when that had happened. There had been several headaches and hormone-induced tears involved. At some point, Emma had simply given up trying to understand because magic makes no fucking sense and, seriously, how is she going to raise a child with magic?

What if she keeps it all under control, manages to raise her daughter properly, and then some Black Fairy wannabe kidnaps Hope and brainwashes her for good? What if she ends up among some freaks who ruin her sense of self and push her over the edge of evilness? Shmi Skywalker had been doing a very fine job with little Anakin, and look how that turned out.

That’s why, when Killian gets home, she blurts out, “We must make Hope watch _Star Wars_.”

Her husband stills, caught in the act of taking off his jacket.

“What?”

“ _Star Wars_. She needs to watch _Star Wars_.”

Killian nods condescendingly. Why isn’t he getting her point?

“Okay. Is there a particular reason for this, Mrs Jones?”

“So she won’t be tempted to become Darth Vader.”

“I don’t know, love. He is quite an appealing character,” he snickers.

Emma pales.

“He dies in the third movie! Why would our daughter want to die? Do you think she could turn self-destructive?”

There’s something about her panicked tones that wipes away Killian’s grin and he finally regards her with some gravity.

“Love? Is something the matter?”

“Hope has magic.”

“Oh, does she? Are you sure?”

“She found her music box. And made her doll levitate.”

Killian grimaces. “Bloody hell. I should have burned that cursed thing when I had the chance.”

“Killian, can you focus on the problem at hand?”

He smiles carelessly and waves his hook. “Emma, I don’t think our daughter having magic will be a problem. Looking after Neal has never been to troublesome, hasn’t it?”

“It’s not a matter of babysitting. It’s a matter of Hope growing up with unparalleled magic and we can’t know if she’ll use it for evil or for good!”

She’s hyperventilating and her hands are all sweaty. Is it just Emma or the room is actually getting smaller?

Oh God, it’s a panic attack. She’s getting a panic attack about her daughter’s magic. This is ridiculous. A part of her understands that this is ridiculous. Still, panic attack. Or at least a very convincing principle of one.

Killian grabs her by the shoulders. He rubs his hand up and down her arm in a soothing movement. “Emma, love, calm down. It’s our daughter we’re talking about. Remember the other day when she didn’t want to take home one of Marie’s kittens because she feared they would miss their mommy? There’s no space for evil in that beautiful heart of hers.”

Emma wishes she could be as certain.

“I’m sure Fiona thought the same about her son,” she deadpans.

“Eh. As much as it pains me to admit it, the crocodile saved my other self, and he had a wife and a son whom he loved and who loved him back. He ended up fine.”

“Yes, keyword there being ‘end’! Regina, Gold, Ingrid, Zelena… they all hurt so many people. Having magic is like being a fucking Skywalker: you start with your best intentions, and then you pull an Anakin and become a bloodthirsty tyrant. Even just one slip into temptation and boom! Your nephew joins a dictator and next thing you know he’s murdering his own father.”

“Look, how many people do we know that became evil?”

Killian doesn’t look concerned enough for someone who might be killed by his own daughter in twenty-seven years.

“A lot.”

A real lot. It seems like a rite of passage: born good, turned evil, redemption arc and then friends with the Nolan-Blanchard-Mills-Swan-Jones family.

Oh God, they’re _worse_ than the Skywalkers.

“Yes. And what do they all have in common?”

“A taste for leather and black silk?”

Killian snorts. “Apart from that?”

Emma shrugs.

Her husband sighs. His eyebrows are doing something stupid. It’s kind of distracting.

“They were alone. Their family abandoned them, didn’t support them or didn’t fight for them. Now, what does our daughter have?”

“A… family?”

“Yes. A very big, stubborn, supportive family, who will always be there for her, to love her, protect her, and teach her right from wrong.”

“And what about her magic?”

“Well, her mother has light magic, she has two witch-godmothers and her older brother is the Author. I think we got the magic part sufficiently covered.”

“Gideon wants to open a school with Blue and Astrid. For children with magic,” Emma muses.

Killian frowns. He makes a sceptical sound in his throat. “See, now _that_ sounds a bit like the Jedi Academy. I’m sure Gideon means well, but so did that… the hippy one.”

“Qui-Gon Jinn.”

“That one. Fairies are not known for their open-mindedness, love.”

Emma feels faint again.

“She’s getting homeschooled.”

“Good idea, Mrs Jones.”

“And if you see one of those wigged monarchs from the other realms going anywhere near her, you’re officially allowed to gut them. On the spot. I’ll get Regina to pardon you.”

Killian chuckles. “Under what argument? _Bella Stellaria_?”

“Do not underestimate my powers, Mr Swan.”

Later that evening they’re on the couch and the end credits of Episode IX are still rolling on the television screen. Hope has fallen asleep on Killian’s lap and he’s mindlessly rubbing her back, gazing at her with such a dumbstruck look of adoration that makes Emma’s heart go all soft and gooey.

“Maybe she’ll be a Luke Skywalker,” he mutters.

Emma arches a very pointed eyebrow.

“The one who attacked his defenseless nephew while he was sleeping?”

Killian hums in agreement.

“Then Leia. She could be a Leia.”

“The mother of an emotionally abused neonazi?”

He scoffs. “Okay, we need to find new movies.”

“I vote for Marvel,” Emma cheers up.

“Absolutely not,” he balks with enough resentment that Hope stirs in her sleep.

Now it’s Emma’s turn to scoff.

“Come on, Mr Swan, I made _one_ comment about Tom Hiddleston’s ass.”

“It’s still one too many, _Mrs Jones_.”

“It was a very fine looking ass.”

“That’s it, I’m throwing those movies in the garbage where they belong.”

“You can’t, they’re Henry’s!”

“The lad will understand.”

“And they’re still on Netflix. Even _Dark World_.”

Killian just glares at her.

“Books. We’ll read her books.”

 

 

 

_“Hey kid, how’s it going?”_

_“Mom, you realize I’m taller than you now, yeah?”_

_“Do you still drink cocoa with cinnamon?”_

_“Sure.”_

_“Then you’ll always be my kid. Listen, can I ask you something?”_

_“Urgh. I’m not babysitting tonight.”_

_“No, no, it’s not that. Violet already said she’ll look after Hope.”_

_“Uh. Is she still with Grace?”_

_“Of course she is. Oh, do you think Lucy would like a kitten? Their cat just had her first litter.”_

_“Mom, it’s six in the morning. Why did you call?”_

_“Uhm. So, it will sound stupid, but Killian and I are in a predicament…”_

_“Ahsoka Tano.”_

_“What?”_

_“Hope will turn out just like Ahsoka Tano.”_

_“Why not Rey?”_

_“Because you’re Rey, mom.”_

_“Uh.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Don’t look at me. Storybrooke has the highest level of female queerness I’ve ever witnessed, so it’s totally plausible that Violet is playing house with Jefferson’s daughter.  
> Killian Jones is a Kylo Ren fanboy, pass it on. And _Bella Stellaria_ is simply _Star Wars_ in Latin.  
>  But are the MCU movies on American Netflix? If not, let’s all pretend that by the time this fan fiction happens, they are. Suspension of disbelief, dearies.
> 
> If you feel like the extended Star Wars reference was too much, you're totally right! Feel free to come and rant at me on Twitter.


End file.
